The Photography of Edward Weston

Paper Summary:

This paper analyzes Edward Weston's photography and its illumination of the human inclination to find order in disorder. The paper first analyzes Weston's 1927 series of prints, entitled, "Shell." The paper goes on to explore and analyze the progression of Weston's works ad includes other famous photographers' comments on his works, such as Ansel Adams. In addition, the paper discusses Weston's work as a reassessment of photography as a strictly documentary form of expression.

From the Paper:

"There is a confusion inspired in the viewer between what is known and what is felt - a remarkable accomplishment for a photograph taken on a small, deep-focus aperture and created under circumstances self-described as completely unadorned by the soft-focus kind of portraiture that was the dominant popular photographic form at the time of Weston's (and cohort Ansel Adams's) rise to fame. Find a conflict, a tension, in his work articulated in his art, eloquently encapsulated by R. H. Craven's description of Weston as "a thoroughly American genius--courageous, pure, troubled, unorthodox, and utterly sure of its purpose." It is a friction between something that is completely guileless tied to something that stirs complex, personal emotions while inspiring disquieting connections and existential questions about the very nature of how we look at and decode images."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Adams, Ansel. "Foreword", The Flame of Recognition, Grossman Publishers. New York, NY. January 1968.
• Craven, R.H., Ed., Masters of Photography 7, Aperture Press. New York, NY. October 1988.
• Heiting, Manfred, ed., Edward Weston: 1886-1958, Taschen Press. Los Angeles, CA., November 2004.
• Newhall, Nancy, ed., The Daybooks of Edward Weston, Aperture Press, New York, NY. March 1991.
• Weston, Edward. On Photography, P. Smith Books, Boston, MA. 1983

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